Theme 4: Offender prevention and intervention

Enhancing law enforcement responses

Australian law enforcement agencies work closely together to investigate child sexual abuse. This often happens through Joint Anti Child Exploitation Teams, which are combined Australian Federal Police and state or territory police child protection teams located across Australia. 

We will build on these and other partnerships and activities to:

• improve nationally consistent approaches to child sexual abuse victim identification
• train law enforcement to better support and work with child sexual abuse victims
• deliver a digital tool to support investigators in real time
• enhance law enforcement cooperation by seconding state, territory and New Zealand police members into the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation
• continue to look at reforms for evidence law and digital evidence to improve outcomes in child sexual abuse cases.

Improving offender prevention and intervention services

Measures under the National Strategy target those who have a fixed, persistent sexual interest in children or young people. They are also aimed at offenders who are opportunistic or situational, and may not have a fixed sexual interest in children and young people. These measures strengthen our criminal justice response and include early intervention and management programs for potential and existing offenders.

In Australia, there is a lack of early intervention services for people who have sexual thoughts about children or young people. Further, Australian support programs for offenders are only available to people who have been convicted of child sexual abuse offences. They are often delivered in prison or after the person has been released. Access to psychological services is also affected by location, availability and cost. There are compelling reasons why services must be available for adults who, without intervention, may go on to sexually abuse a child. International research suggests people with a sexual preference for children or young people are often aware of their attraction for some time before they are known to the criminal justice system or seek treatment. Interventions must be used during this time to stop possible perpetrators from ever harming a child or young person. For this reason, the Royal Commission recommended that Australia introduce an offender prevention program based on the UK’s Stop it Now! program. 

Community programs that intervene before a child or young person has been harmed, mean law enforcement can focus their resources on particularly harmful or high-risk offending – where a strong criminal justice response will always be needed. 

The focus of government measures

Measures under this theme will: 

• enhance law enforcement cooperation and activities to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse
• build support programs that prevent offending, intervene before offending occurs and reduce repeat offending. 

Measures under this theme will work alongside those in the First Commonwealth Action Plan. We will balance community prevention and intervention programs against new and stronger law enforcement and intelligence responses to fight child sexual abuse. We will also use a strong data, research and evidence agenda to better understand and intervene in child sexual abuse offending. Please refer to theme 5 for further information.